“Sonia Sotomayor” on The Daily Caller

We’ve seen it before, we’ll see it again, and it goes something like this: a Supreme Court candidate espouses radical views throughout her career; same candidate is nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court with White House assurances that she is a moderate; during her confirmation hearings, candidate undergoes a “confirmation conversion” and no longer holds the same radical views; once on the Supreme Court, candidate returns right back to her old ways. We saw it with Sonia Sotomayor. We’ll see it again from Elena Kagan. (more)

At least 11 states have passed laws this year regulating or restricting abortion, giving opponents of abortion what partisans on both sides of the issue say is an unusually high number of victories. In four additional states, bills have passed at least one house of the legislature. (more)

In a carefully worded letter to top Judiciary Committee Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Obama administration says it might withhold some of the memos Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wrote when she served in the Clinton White House. (more)

The Supreme Court has just held that violent juveniles cannot be given a life sentence without the opportunity for parole, unless they succeed in killing their victim. Even torturers and rapists who attempt to commit murder cannot be denied the opportunity for release under the court’s decision Monday in Graham v. Florida. (more)

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The realm of judicial nominations has a lexicon all its own, where coded Washington language takes on extra layers of complexity. When President Obama nominated his first judge to the Supreme Court last year, the word of the hour was “empathy.” This time, the term is “consensus builder.” Judicial monastery“ and “constitutional core values” have been bandied about. And what would a debate over judges be without use of “judicial activism“? (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — After toppling three-term Republican Sen. Robert F. Bennett in Utah, tea party activists and other conservative critics shifted their sights Sunday to a mid-May primary in Kentucky, their next big challenge to a political establishment they have vowed to upend. (more)

President Obama’s is at odds with his Democratic base on who he should pick to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. (more)

Sen. Jeff Sessions, leading Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, says public anger at the White House is making his fight against President Obama’s yet-to-be-named Supreme Court justice easier. (more)

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Some will say that President Obama’s nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should not be opposed because Obama will merely be replacing a liberal with a liberal. But there are no seats reserved for liberals or conservatives on the nation’s highest court. The American people expect every justice to fulfill their oath and respect the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the rule of law; not impose their own policy preferences from the bench. To modify a recent winning line: It’s not the Stevens’ seat, it’s not Obama’s seat, it’s our third branch of government – not a second legislature in robes. (more)

The battle over the next Supreme Court justice is already under way, as the No. 2 Republican in the Senate on Sunday would not rule out blocking a successor to Justice John Paul Stevens — who said in interviews published this weekend his retirement is on the horizon. (more)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — While the issue of same-sex marriage is widely expected to work its way to the U.S. Supreme Court over the next few years, another thorny legal question raised in the case has already landed before the high court: cameras in federal courtrooms. (more)

The Justice Department Civil Rights Division announced Thursday that it is suing the state of New Jersey over a police examination that it claims discriminates against African-American and Hispanic candidates. (more)